BENEFITS FROM DRAINAGE. 15T 



nant water, and give a ready escape for all that may rise 

 from springs, or which falls in the rains. A flowing current 

 is at once established and life and health at once take the 

 place of the unwholesome effects and death, Ajhich accom- 

 panied the stagnant water. The active current brings in 

 oxygen and carbonic acid which is given up to the soil; 

 the atmosphere takes the place of the withdrawn water and 

 the heat of the sun enters the now porous soil and starts the 

 active circulation within it, which represent precisely, but 

 in a minute way the air currents above the earths surface, 

 which we call winds; but which are caused and controlled 

 by the same changes of temperature which occur in the 

 dried soil. Every operation of nature which inures for 

 the encouragement of plant growth is now actively at work 

 in the soil, and the production of plant food goes on with- 

 out hindrance. The soil, solid and compact before, is now 

 open, loose, porous and friable; the frosts pulverize it; the 

 just sufficient water dissolves it; the acids are oxidized, or 

 neutralized by the alkaline solutions which ebb and flow 

 through it ; and the farmer no longer delayed when the sea- 

 sons work presses is able to plow and plant in due time. 

 Every shower then refreshes and fertilizes the land; brings 

 down with it useful substances from the atmosphere, which 

 are absorbed at once by the soil, instead of being wasted 

 and washed away, as they were when the surface of the 

 land was saturated and flooded ; and at the same time it re- 

 news the air within the soil, causing fresh accessions of such 

 plant food which the air may supply. Moreover this mode 

 of improvement of the soil is equivalent to a considerable 

 deepening of it, for it opens it to the plow and permits the 

 roots to forage to a depth as far down as the drains are 

 placed. It thus enables the farmer to vary his crops and 

 grow such kinds as he may wish and which will be most 

 profitable to him. 



Lastly the farmer who drains his wet fields, confers a 

 benefit upon the locality in which he lives. The greatest pest 

 of the American farmer and to his cattle as w r ell, is the ever 

 prevailing miasma which rises from stagnant water, below, 



